Dyne:bolic
Encyclopedia
dyne:bolic is a Live CD
/DVD based on the Linux kernel
with a focus on multimedia
production, and is distributed with a large assortment of applications for audio and video manipulation. Termed "Rasta
soft" by its author, dyne:bolic is based entirely on free software
, and is recognized by the GNU Project
for this characteristic.
dyne:bolic is designed and optimized for old and slower computers, turning them into full media stations: this is why the software in it is often not at the newest version available. But the result for this is that the minimum you need is a Pentium1
or K5
PC with only 64 MB RAM and an IDE CD-ROM, or an Xbox
game console - and if you have more than one, you can easily do clusters.
Latest version is 3.0.0, codename MUNIR
, released on September 8, 2011.
Basic system requirements for version 1.x and 2.x are relatively low: a PC with a Pentium MMX (i586) class CPU and 64 MB
of RAM is sufficient. Some versions of dyne:bolic can be used on an Xbox
game console (Xbox is not currently supported by v2.0).
) which can also be encrypted for better privacy (described as "Nesting" in the db literature).
activist
s, artist
s and creators, to be a practical tool for multimedia
production. It allows manipulation and broadcast
of both sound and video with tools to record, edit, encode, and stream. In addition to many multimedia specific programs, dyne:bolic also provides word processors and common desktop computing tools.
The dyne:bolic author and maintainer Jaromil
has also created various multimedia tools included in the distribution: MuSE, HasciiCam, FreeJ
, as well as other software functionalities such as the nesting and docking, while co-developer and friend, Smilzo contributed the port for Xbox game consoles.
. The modules are SquashFS
files placed in the modules directory of a dock (see above) or a CD and are automatically integrated at boot.
use. Xfce
is used as the desktop
interface.
There are few things that were present in dyne:bolic line 1.x. It was:
These features were abandoned in the dyne:bolic 2.x series.
is used as the desktop
interface.
Live CD
A live CD, live DVD, or live disc is a CD or DVD containing a bootable computer operating system. Live CDs are unique in that they have the ability to run a complete, modern operating system on a computer lacking mutable secondary storage, such as a hard disk drive...
/DVD based on the Linux kernel
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....
with a focus on multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
production, and is distributed with a large assortment of applications for audio and video manipulation. Termed "Rasta
Rastafari movement
The Rastafari movement or Rasta is a new religious movement that arose in the 1930s in Jamaica, which at the time was a country with a predominantly Christian culture where 98% of the people were the black descendants of slaves. Its adherents worship Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia , as God...
soft" by its author, dyne:bolic is based entirely on free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
, and is recognized by the GNU Project
GNU Project
The GNU Project is a free software, mass collaboration project, announced on September 27, 1983, by Richard Stallman at MIT. It initiated GNU operating system development in January, 1984...
for this characteristic.
dyne:bolic is designed and optimized for old and slower computers, turning them into full media stations: this is why the software in it is often not at the newest version available. But the result for this is that the minimum you need is a Pentium1
P5 (microarchitecture)
The original Pentium microprocessor was introduced on March 22, 1993. Its microarchitecture, deemed P5, was Intel's fifth-generation and first superscalar x86 microarchitecture. As a direct extension of the 80486 architecture, it included dual integer pipelines, a faster FPU, wider data bus,...
or K5
AMD K5
The K5 was AMD's first x86 processor to be developed entirely in-house. Introduced in March 1996, its primary competition was Intel's Pentium microprocessor. The K5 was an ambitious design, closer to a Pentium Pro than a Pentium regarding technical solutions and internal architecture...
PC with only 64 MB RAM and an IDE CD-ROM, or an Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
game console - and if you have more than one, you can easily do clusters.
Latest version is 3.0.0, codename MUNIR
Munir Said Thalib
Munir Said Thalib , affectionately known simply as "Munir", was one of Indonesia's most famous human rights and anti-corruption activist...
, released on September 8, 2011.
Live CD/DVD
dyne:bolic is designed from ground up to be used as Live CD/DVD. It does not require installation to a hard drive, and attempts to recognize most devices and peripherals automatically (for example: sound, video, TV, etc.). Its kernel is highly optimized for low latency and high performance, making it suitable for audio and video production.System requirements
dyne:bolic is not based on any other existing Live CD/DVD technology. Version 3.x has higher system requirements than older versions of dyne:bolic, and is the first version released as DVD image instead of CD-ROM image.Basic system requirements for version 1.x and 2.x are relatively low: a PC with a Pentium MMX (i586) class CPU and 64 MB
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
of RAM is sufficient. Some versions of dyne:bolic can be used on an Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
game console (Xbox is not currently supported by v2.0).
Installation
The user copies the dyne directory from the CD (described in dyne:bolic literature as "Docking") to any suitably formatted partition or drive. This filesystem will be recognised and booted by the CD, or there is the option to install a bootloader or edit an existing one. Booting from floppy disk is also supported. Dyne:bolic can save user settings in a file on a partition (or even user's own USB flash driveUSB flash drive
A flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...
) which can also be encrypted for better privacy (described as "Nesting" in the db literature).
Multimedia support
dyne:bolic has been shaped by the needs of mediaMass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
activist
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
s, artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
s and creators, to be a practical tool for multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
production. It allows manipulation and broadcast
Broadcasting
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...
of both sound and video with tools to record, edit, encode, and stream. In addition to many multimedia specific programs, dyne:bolic also provides word processors and common desktop computing tools.
The dyne:bolic author and maintainer Jaromil
Jaromil
Denis Roio is a free software programmer, a media artist and activist. He has made significant contributions to the development of multimedia and streaming applications on the Linux platform...
has also created various multimedia tools included in the distribution: MuSE, HasciiCam, FreeJ
FreeJ
FreeJ is a modular video mixer for GNU/Linux systems. It is marketed as a "vision mixer". It is capable of real-time video manipulation, for amateur and professional uses. It can be used as an instrument in the fields of dance theater, veejaying, medical visualisation and TV...
, as well as other software functionalities such as the nesting and docking, while co-developer and friend, Smilzo contributed the port for Xbox game consoles.
Modules
dyne:bolic can be extended by downloading extra modules such as development tools or OpenOffice.orgOpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
. The modules are SquashFS
SquashFS
SquashFS is a compressed read-only file system for Linux. SquashFS compresses files, inodes and directories, and supports block sizes up to 1 MB for greater compression...
files placed in the modules directory of a dock (see above) or a CD and are automatically integrated at boot.
dyne:bolic 1.x
Version 1.4.1 (using Linux 2.4) is a CD-ROM image, and is provided for XboxXbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
use. Xfce
Xfce
Xfce is a free software desktop environment for Unix and other Unix-like platforms, such as Linux, Solaris, and BSD – though recent compatibility issues have arisen with regard to BSD Unix platforms...
is used as the desktop
Desktop environment
In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface derived from the desktop metaphor that is seen on most modern personal computers. These GUIs help the user in easily accessing, configuring, and modifying many important and frequently accessed...
interface.
There are few things that were present in dyne:bolic line 1.x. It was:
- openMosixOpenMosixopenMosix was a free cluster management system that provided single-system image capabilities, e.g. automatic work distribution among nodes. It allowed program processes to migrate to machines in the node's network that would be able to run that process faster...
- clustering software - WindowMaker as fast and small footprintMemory footprintMemory footprint refers to the amount of main memory that a program uses or references while running.This includes all sorts of active memory regions like code, static data sections , heap, as well as all the stacks, plus memory required to hold any additional data structures, such as symbol...
X window managerX window managerAn X window manager is a window manager which runs on top of the X Window System, a windowing system mainly used on Unix-like systems.Unlike the Mac OS and Microsoft Windows platforms which have historically provided a vendor-controlled, fixed set of ways to control how windows and panes display... - CIA FactbookThe World FactbookThe World Factbook is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The official paper copy version is available from the National Technical Information Service and the Government Printing Office...
- local copy - ability to boot on XboxXboxThe Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
game console
These features were abandoned in the dyne:bolic 2.x series.
dyne:bolic 2.x
Version 2.5.2 uses Linux 2.6, and is a CD-ROM image. XfceXfce
Xfce is a free software desktop environment for Unix and other Unix-like platforms, such as Linux, Solaris, and BSD – though recent compatibility issues have arisen with regard to BSD Unix platforms...
is used as the desktop
Desktop environment
In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface derived from the desktop metaphor that is seen on most modern personal computers. These GUIs help the user in easily accessing, configuring, and modifying many important and frequently accessed...
interface.
See also
- List of GNU/Linux distributions endorsed by the Free Software Foundation
- Comparison of Linux LiveDistros
- MusixMusixMusix GNU/Linux is a live CD and DVD Linux distribution for the IA-32 processor family based on Debian. It contains a collection of software for audio production, graphic design, video editing and general purpose applications...
- Ubuntu StudioUbuntu StudioUbuntu Studio is an officially recognized derivative of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, which is explicitly geared to general multimedia production. The original version, based on Ubuntu 7.04, was released on May 10, 2007.-Real-time kernel:...
- 64 Studio
External links
- dyne:bolic website
- pure:dyne — dyne:II based live CD focused on audio and video processing